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New light is being shed on the 2001 anthrax attacks in a fascinating open letter to Ayman al Zawahiri of al Qaeda, written by a jihadi living in London. Numan Bin Uthman, a former leader of an armed Islamic group in Libya, provides yet more evidence that the global Islamic jihad movement is losing its resolve.  But the letter contains a startling admission. Uthman tells us of a conversation he had with al Qaeda leaders before the 9/11 attacks in which he urged them not to use WMD. From AKI News: Uthman also said that he had taken part in...

SNIPPET: "New York City is the center of a public uproar as Internet blogger Pamela Gellar rises with an “anti-jihad” ad campaign." SNIPPET: "Gellar and her group are protesting the Jihad, which in definition is the religious duty of Muslims. According to the Dictionary of Islam, jihad is defined as “A religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad . . . enjoined especially for the purpose of advancing Islam and repelling evil from Muslims.” The literal meaning of jihad, according to the British Broadcasting Network, “is struggle or effort, and it means much more than...

SNIPPET: "Two brothers of Kurdish origin are being prosecuted by the Swiss authorities on charges of being involved via the internet with an Islamic terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda. The asylum seekers are accused of setting up internet platforms that were designed to attract new members to the recently formed terrorist organisation, issue propaganda, pass on messages to the al-Qaeda network and disseminate details of terror attacks.
 
In addition, the brothers are alleged to have downloaded videos of executions and stored them on their computers.
 
According to the Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office, the unnamed terrorist organisation was headed by Kurdish extremist cleric Mullah Krekar,...

SNIPPET: "The 55-year-old mullah, whose real name is Najmeddine Faraj Ahmad and who has lived in Norway since 1991, founded the Ansar al-Islam group. He was found guilty of threatening the life of Erna Solberg, an ex-minister who signed his expulsion order in 2003 because he was considered a threat to national security. "Norway will pay a heavy price for my death," he said during a meeting with international media in June 2010. "If for example Erna Solberg deports me and I die as a result, she will suffer the same fate," he said in Arabic. "I don't know who...

SNIPPET: "Rabat — Morocco's security forces have broken up a five-member terrorist cell that used to operate in the cities of Salé (near Rabat) and Casablanca, National Police Department said on Saturday in a statement. The statement added that the dismantled cell includes a member linked to the former emir of al Qaeda network in northern Iraq. The cell, which pledged allegiance to Ayman Al-Zawahiri, used Internet to forge close ties with al Qaida, especially in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Yemen and Somalia, it said." SNIPPET: "To carry out their plans, the members of the cell contacted, via Internet, experts in...

SNIPPET: "OSLO, Norway, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- A Muslim extremist leader facing terrorism charges from his Norwegian hosts said this week he's planning on leaving for his native Kurdistan. Najmaddin Faraj, who goes by the name Mullah Krekar, in the 1990s was one of the co-founders of the Kurdish extremist group Ansar al-Islam, which Western officials say has links to al-Qaida." SNIPPET: "Krekar is due in Oslo District Court next month to face terrorism charges, the news agency said. Should he instead return to Kurdistan, he won't be facing any charges from the PUK, a party lawyer told Rudaw."

OSLO, Norway (AP) — A Norwegian prosecutor has filed terror charges against an Iraqi-born cleric for threatening Norwegian politicians with death if he's deported from the Nordic country.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) Prosecutors said on Tuesday they will charge a Dutch chemicals dealer as an accomplice to genocide for supplying Saddam Hussein with lethal chemicals used in the 1988 chemical attack on a Kurdish town that killed an estimated 5,000 civilians. Wim de Bruin of the national prosecutor's office said the suspect, who was arrested in Amsterdam on Monday, will face charges ''for violating the laws of war and involvement in genocide.'' Prosecutors said Frans van Anraat, a 62-year-old chemicals dealer, had been a suspect since 1989, when he was arrested in Milan, Italy, at the request of the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Coalition forces in Baghdad have killed the man believed to be the mastermind of recent bombings in the Iraqi capital, the U.S. military said. Mahir Ahmad Mahmud Judu al-Zubaydi, also known as Abu Rami and Abu Assad, was believed to be the leader of one of al Qaeda in Iraq's Baghdad networks, the military said in a statement issued Friday. The military said intelligence reports led coalition forces to a building in Baghdad's Adhamiya neighborhood Friday. They surrounded the building and called on the occupants to surrender but were engaged by small arms fire, the military...

Former British PM Tony Blair testified in front of another Iraq inquiry today and for the second time this year he testified about the very real danger of Iran and al-Qaeda working together. Of course the storyline by the British papers, the biased MSM, and the lefty blogosphere, is regarding the regret offered by Blair over the loss of life: At the end of his evidence this afternoon he said it had never been his meaning. "Of course I regret deeply and profoundly the loss of life," I'm sure everyone else would cheer the loss of life huh? I...

OSLO (AFP) - The founder of radical Islamist group Ansar al-Islam was questioned in Oslo by German police ahead of the arrests in Germany of three men suspected of plotting to attack visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allaiwi. German police interrogated Mullah Krekar in Oslo early last week and he is thought to be linked to at least one of the men arrested on Friday on suspicion of planning attacks during Allawi's visit, the Norwegian daily VG reported Sunday. All three have been ordered held over their alleged membership of Ansar al-Islam, described by German authorities as a foreign terrorist...

SNIPPET: "Four of them - German citizens identified only as Tarek Alexander H., Daniel P., Renee Marc S. and Jonas T. - face charges of supporting al-Qaida, al-Qaida in Iraq and Ansar al-Islam, and membership in a criminal organization. Another four face those charges and additionally are accused of trying to recruit members or supporters for al-Qaida or al-Qaida in Iraq. In keeping with German privacy rules, they were identified only as Harun Can A., Salim Mohammed A. and Vivian S., all German citizens; and Emin T., a Turkish national. The key figure in the founding and organization of the...

Iraqi security forces backed by US advisers have captured the head of the al Qaeda-linked Ansar al Islam. Abu Abdullah al Shafi, the leader of Ansar al Islam, or Partisans of Islam, was detained along with seven "criminal associates" during raids in the Baghdad neighborhoods of Mansour and Adhamiyah on May 3, US Forces Iraq reported in a press release.

SNIPPET: "ABU DHABI // A Lebanese American who faces terrorism charges is linked to al Qa’eda, the Federal Supreme Court was told yesterday. Naji Hamdan, 43, is charged with promoting terrorism, participating in the work of a terrorist organisation and funding a terrorist organisation. Details of the charges, all relating to alleged activity outside the UAE, emerged for the first time yesterday. A lawyer for the State Security Public Prosecution told the court: “Naji Hamdan is directly linked to Ansar al-Sunna and al Qa’eda members through electronic communication.” Ansar al-Sunna is a militant Sunni faction in Iraq connected to al...

Note: The following text is a quote: MULTI-NATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ PRESS DESK BAGHDAD, Iraq http://www.mnf-iraq.com Press Release A090804-02 August 4, 2009 Iraqi Army, Police and Coalition advisors arrest 10 Ansar Islam operatives BAGHDAD – Mosul Special Weapons and Tactics and Iraqi Army soldiers, with Coalition advisors, conducted a series of raids on July 24 that targeted and successfully captured key leaders and operatives of Ansar al Islam in Mosul. Fakri Hadi Gari, also known as Abu ‘Abbas and Mullah Halgurd, assessed to be the deputy commander for Ansar al Islam was arrested during this raid. He is believed to be responsible...

November 26, 2008 BERLIN (AP) — Two German citizens suspected of distributing propaganda over the Internet supporting al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations were arrested Tuesday, German prosecutors said. The men — identified only as Daniel P., 26 and Harun Can A., 23 — were among eight suspects whose homes were raided on Tuesday, federal prosecutors said in a statement. A 19-year-old German citizen identified as Irfan P. was already in custody on separate charges before the morning raids in cities including Augsburg, Duesseldorf and Bremen, where investigators combed through the suspects' computer equipment.

(AINA) -- A Christian bishop received a threatening letter written by Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish Muslim group affiliated with al-Qaeda in Iraq. The letter ordered the Christians to leave Iraq en masse and stated it is sending a final warning to Christians in Baghdad and other Iraqi governorates to leave Iraq permanently.

An Islamist group has sent threatening letters to Assyrian churches in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, asking them not to cooperate with US forces. The letter sent by The Batallion of Just Punishment, Jihad Base in Mesopotamia, also opposes the establishment of a sectarian Assyrian-Christian police force, reported the Assyrian International News Agency on Wednesday. "We caution and warn anyone who tries to rob us through dealings with the Americans or through the spreading of American forces and/or police to protect the Holy Shrines in the Islamic Republic of Iraq, that these shrines would remain target of the freedom...

After months of quiet diplomacy, the Norwegian government has given up on efforts to send former terrorist-group leader Mullah Krekar back to his homeland. Krekar, who has been under an expulsion order after being determined a threat to Norway's national security, initially came to Norway as a refugee from Iraq in the early 1990s. It later emerged that he was the head of guerrilla group Ansar al-Islam and he repeatedly violated the terms of his asylum by travelling back to northern Iraq to lead guerrilla activities. Krekar is the only person in Norway ever to have been sentenced to deportation...

The Liberal media has been focused on a so called Gaffe John McCain has made recently in the press. Example is this IPS news story http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41693 POLITICS-US: McCain's Gaffes Reflect Bush's Iran-Qaeda Myth Analysis by Gareth Porter* WASHINGTON, Mar 21 (IPS) - Sen. John McCain's confusion in recent allegations of Iranian training of al Qaeda fighters in Iraq is the result of a drumbeat of official propaganda about close Iran-al Qaeda ties that the George W. Bush administration and neoconservatives have promoted ever since early 2002. Funny how the left-wing press is eager to point out a McCain Gaffe when...

Insight News Television presents a film on Ansar al-Islam - the radical Islamic militia named by US Secretary of State Colin Powell in his speach to the UN. He said it was one of the missing links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Our reporter, Jonathan Miller, spent two days with Ansar's leader, Mullah Krekar. Krekar's an Iraqi Kurd, but is today living in Norway, which granted his family political asylum ten years ago. Refugee status hasn't stopped him from returning regularly to Northern Iraq to wage jihad and commit human rights abuses against his own people. Krekar set...

A former Defense and Finance Minister of post-invasion Iraq, Ali A. Allawi has completed and just released a book titled "The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace" that talks about the inner workings of many things that took place in post-invasion Iraqi government. Amir Taheri's review of the book for Asharq al Alawsat reveals that Allawi's points to some of the roots of today's violence in Iraq going back over a decade to when Saddam Hussein used violent groups for his own domestic purposes. One of the most interesting revelations in this book is Allawi's account of...

The Iranian Revolution in Iraq KOMALAH COMPOUND, NORTHERN IRAQ ? They were supposed to be social democrats, the people Patrick Lasswell and I met yesterday in a compound outside the city of Suleimaniya, the cultural capital of Northern Iraqi Kurdistan. We had it all set up. We were to meet Abu Bakr Mudarisy and his associates for lunch at 11:00 A.M. and learn what we could about the anti-government resistance a few miles away in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Our driver Yusef misunderstood and took us to the wrong place. He did drop us off where we met left-wing...

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - A Turkish court on Friday sentenced seven men caught in 2004 while allegedly planning to assassinate visiting U.S. President George W. Bush , CNN-Turk reported. The seven were said to be members of the Ansar al-Islam radical Islamic group, which prosecutors said has ties to al-Qaida. They were caught in a raid before a June 2004 NATO Summit in Istanbul, which Bush attended. The leader of the group, Alpaslan Toprak, was sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison, while the other six defendants each received six years and three months, CNN-Turk reported. They were...

Globalterroralert.com 10/21/04http://www.globalterroralert.com/ansarsunnah1004-4.pdf "Those of us from the Ansar Al-Sunnah Army celebrate and congratulate the Muslims and all of our mujahideen brothers in the Tawheed wal-Jihad Movement on the occasion of their inclusion on the list of terrorists... Praise be to Allah, it increased the joy in our hearts that John Kerry, the presidential candidate, has criticized the Bush government for taking so long in making this declaration. The one who may become the president of America is already struck with terror by our brothers from the Tawheed wal-Jihad Movement. The repeated attacks that have targeted the evil Bush are now...

Lt. General Michael DeLong discusses intelligence behind U.S. concern over Ansar al-Islam terror/poison camp in Northern IraqA recent conversation Lt. General Michael DeLong revealed new information on prewar intelligence on Iraq that has received little, if any, public attention thus far. General DeLong was the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command during the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and was directly involved with the pre-invasion preparation for Operation Iraqi Freedom. He offered the observation that Bush administration officials appear to have been reluctant thus far in explaining the prewar intelligence and evidence tying members of Saddam Hussein’s regime to the...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Three undercover CIA officers arrived in Norway in the spring of 2003 as part of a possible secret operation targeting for rendition an Islamic militant living in Oslo known as Mullah Krekar, The Washington Post reported. Citing lawyers and unnamed European investigators, the newspaper said shortly after the agents arrived, Krekar received a warning from an anonymous Norwegian official that Krekar, then head of a Kurdish insurgent group, was a CIA target and should watch his back. The spies left Norway by the end of the summer, the report said. If the CIA was planning to abduct...

ALBANY - A mosque leader charged with helping launder money in a missile plot thought all the weapon talk was a joke, his lawyer said yesterday - but prosecutors were not laughing. Imam Yassin Muhiddin Aref was jailed without bail after prosecutors questioned why his name was found in a notebook in a terrorist camp listed as "Commander Yassin, United States." They also unveiled a photo of the imam's co-defendant watching as an informant shouldered a real surface-to-air missile in the back room of an Albany-area convenience store. That was among the evidence cited by prosecutors in Albany Federal Court...

ALBANY -- Jurors heard three opening statements this morning in the federal trial of two Albany men facing terrorism-related charges. Yassin M. Aref, 36, the jailed spiritual leader of a Central Avenue mosque, and Mohammed M. Hossain, 51, a city pizza shop owner, are accused of taking part in a plot to sell missile launchers to terrorists during an FBI sting that began in July 2003. The men face up to 400 years in prison if convicted. Assistant U.S. Attorney William Pericak for the government; Kent Sprotbery for Aref; and Kevin Luibrand for Hossain made brief opening statements in U.S....

Sheikh Zana’ gang became the first group that have formally been executed by the Kurdistan Regional Government’s authorities, reported local media in Kurdistan on Thursday. The group of 11 people were hanged in the capital of Kurdistan, Arbil on Thursday. The group was named after their leader Zana Nasrat Sheikh Abdulkarim Barzinji, known as Sheikh Zana. The group members confessed to their crimes on Kurdistan’s TV few months ago.

Revisiting Ansar al Islam's CBW capabilities kurdmap (Back-to-Iraq photo) With the upcoming Senate Intelligence report due shortly, perhaps the question of where and how Ansar al Islam received CBW know-how (which included ricin, botulinum and possibly cyanide) and equipment will finally be answered. Initial reports from American media outlets mentioned the findings of the Ansar al Islam camps in Northern Iraq included directions on making high grade explosives and Iraqi military grade TNT in addition to the CBW starter kit. As mentioned by both the 9-11 Commission and Senate Intelligence Committee, the group's support from Saddam Hussein's regime included various...

A Norwegian newspaper is reporting that several agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have been present and operating in Norway, in an effort to spirit Mullah Krekar out of the country. US officials have long suspected Krekar of having terrorist links. As the former head of guerrilla group Ansar al-Islam, Krekar also is accused of murders back in Iraq, and he has voiced support for Islamic terrorists on Arabic television. Newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad has reported that the US government tried to spirit Krekar out of Norway three years ago. The newspaper said it had information showing that several...

Ansar al-Islam and Saddam Hussein's regime Much has been written about Iraq's possible state-sponsorship of the Islamic militant group , who resided in Northern Iraq between 2001 and 2003, referred to by an assortment of names (Jund al-Islam, Ansar al-Islam, later Ansar al-Sunnah, etc.). Now that some of the people involved in the possible relationship have been caught and interrogated, and the region has been secured and analyzed, the story should be reevaluated. What allegations of support can be better confirmed or denied 3 years after the start of the U.S. led invasion?

How [radical] Islam makes one into a fascist, whether you are Arab, black, etc. The broader view of the deep & wide reality of Islamofascism What do the Arab Muslim massacre in NYC WTC, The Pakistani Muslim bombing in London, the Arab Muslim bombing in Madrid, an Indonesian attack on Australians in Bali, an Arab Muslim racist attack on an ordinary Jew in Paris, Arabs' onslaught in the genocide campaign in Sudan, WW2's Bosnian Muslims attacking Christian Serbs, Jordanian Arab murderer: Zarqawi that seperated (Nazi style) between Shiite & Sunni kids on a bus, Arab slave masters in Mauritania, a...

TERRORIST CHEMICAL EXPERT KILLED IN BAGHDAD RAID Release Date: 5/8/2006 Release Number: 06-05-08P Description: BAGHDAD, Iraq – Ansar al-Islam member and chemical expert, Ali Wali, was killed May 6th at approximately 1 p.m. during a counterterrorist raid in the Mansur district of Baghdad. Iraqi civilians transported the two bodies to the morgue where Coalition forces later confirmed the identity of the wanted terrorist, Ali Wali. Neither Iraqi nor Coalition forces were able to confirm the identity of the driver, who was killed. Ali Wali, full name believed to be Abbas bin Farnas bin Qafqas, was a 37 or 38-year-old Iraqi...

Iraqi Ansar Al-Islam Commander Mullah Krekar in Norway: "No Peace Between West & Islam Until Islamic Caliphate is Re-established; Bin Laden & Al-Zawahiri are Good People; Muslims in Europe Increase Like Mosquitoes – By 2050 Europe Will Be 30% Muslim" In the aftermath of the controversy over the cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, the Internet edition of the Norwegian daily Dagbladet interviewed Kurdish Iraqi Islamist Mullah Krekar. In it, Krekar expounded his views on relations between Islam and the West. Krekar, whose real name is Najm Al-Din Faraj Ahmad, came to Norway as a refugee in 1991, where he established...

ARBIL, (Southern Kurdistan), April 4, 2006 (AFP) - A court in Iraq's northern Kurdistan region Tuesday sentenced to death 12 members of militant group Ansar Al-Islam for numerous killings and explosions, an Arbil judiciary official said. "Zana Nusrat Abdel Karim, the chief of a cell of Ansar al-Islam and 11 other members were condemned to death by the criminal court of Arbil," the official told AFP. The 12 were convicted of numerous "terrorist" activities and killings of civilians in Kurdistan's Arbil and Dahuk regions, the official said. Karim, 35, a mechanical engineer and resident of Arbil used to carry out...

ALBANY -- The spiritual leader of an Albany mosque repeatedly called a phone number in Syria that an FBI report indicates had been used to gather terrorist intelligence for Osama bin Laden, according to classified documents unsealed late Tuesday in U.S. District Court. The FBI report, which was based on information from a confidential informant, was among several once-secret documents that federal authorities say raise questions about Yassin Aref's connections to terrorist organizations across the Middle East. Aref, 35, a Kurdish refugee who moved to Albany with his family in 1999, is in jail without bond while awaiting trial on...

In the coded language of Lokman Amin Mohammed's smuggling network, fighters and suicide bombers sent to Iraq were called "workers" for "the firm." When one band of fighters he smuggled from Germany launched its first attack, Mohammed exclaimed in a phone conversation: "They have celebrated their first feast." Last month, the 33-year-old was sentenced in Munich to seven years in prison for smuggling fighters to and from Iraq, and for membership in "the firm," better known as Ansar al-Islam, an Al Qaeda-linked group responsible for suicide attacks against civilians and U.S. soldiers. During sentencing, Justice Bernd von Heintschel-Heinegg said Mohammed's...

An American citizen held in Iraq since 2004 allegedly worked with terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and helped plan insurgent attacks on foreigners in Iraq, NBC News has learned.

Brescia and Naples, 18 Nov. (AKI) - The three Algerians detained on Tuesday in the Italian cities of Brescia and Naples were planning a massive terror attack - "on a ship as big as the Titanic, packed with explosives" - that aimed to kill "at least 10,000 people", as well as an attack on "Italian citizens and interests" in Tunisia, according phone conversations between the three men, which Italian anti-terror police say they intercepted after al-Qaeda's deadly 7 July attacks on London and on the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. In their tapped phone conversations, Yamine Bouhrama, Mohamed...

Twisting the Al-Qaida Connection Posted by Mithridate Ombud on November 28, 2005 - 15:22. Robyn Blumner, former ACLU Director and current St. Petersburg Times columnist retreads this old leftist tire: Fox News gives its audience what it wants, too. That's why, in 2003, a survey from the Program on International Policy Attitudes found that 67 percent of its loyal viewers believed the fallacy that Saddam Hussein was connected to al-Qaida, whereas only 40 percent of those who relied on print media were confused on that point. Welcome to the "informed" electorate of a newspaper-free world. It's already starting to give...

At the time, the meeting hardly seemed notable--let alone the start of the world's deadliest partnership. It was late in 1999, and Osama bin Laden was sheltering in Afghanistan, already deep into his plot to attack the World Trade Center. His visitor was a burly young Jordanian, bruised and furious after spending six years inside his country's worst prisons. Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi had traveled to Afghanistan with a proposal for the al-Qaeda chief: he wanted to rally Islam's "true believers" to rise up against corrupt regimes in the Middle East. Bin Laden was skeptical. While al-Zarqawi advocated a war on...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Three Iraqi men will stand trial in Germany accused of planning to kill their visiting prime minister and belonging to a terrorist group, the German prosecutor's office said on Wednesday. It said the three were members of Ansar al-Islam, which the United States calls a major insurgent group linked to al Qaeda. Two of them, named as Ata R., 31, and Mazen H., 23, are also accused of collecting and transferring funds to Iraq and Iran on behalf of the network. The third man, named as Rafik Y., 31, had phoned the others to obtain their approval...

LONDON, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- British officials say as many as 70 young Muslim men have left the country for Iraq to fight in the insurgency against the U.S.-led occupation. The London Sunday Times cited unnamed British counterterrorism officials whom it did not quote directly, except to describe the movement of young fanatics to Iraq in the past two years as "a steady trickle." The paper said Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had set up a network in Britain "to recruit and train would-be suicide bombers and gunmen." It said the group was called Ansar al-Fath, or Partisans of...

ALBANY, N.Y. - Two Muslim men caught up in an anti-terrorism sting operation pleaded innocent Friday as details emerged about 10 new charges against them. Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain were accused Thursday of attempting to provide support to Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistan-based group listed by the federal government as a terrorist organization. Aref, who leads a mosque, also was charged with lying to federal officials. The pair were initially charged in August 2004 with conspiring to launder money and promoting terrorism. They now face a total of 30 charges. Entered as new evidence against Aref were entries in his personal...

London – An Iranian military source has disclosed an initiative on behalf of 'Al Quds Corps', which is affiliated to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, to reinforce its relations with 'Ansar Al Islam Organization' in Iraqi Kurdistan and the Qa'idat Al Jihad Fi Bilad Al Rafidain (The Base of Jihad in the Land of the Two Rivers) in the center and south of Iraq. The Iranian officer, who is a former colonel in 'Al Quds Corps' told Al Sharq Al Awsat that officials from the Revolutionary Guard have recently me[t] with leaders of Ansar Al Islam and the Jihad organizations in...

Two weeks ago, Turkish police arrested an Islamist with ties to many upper tier al-Qaida members. The man not only tried to get asylum in Germany, but claims to have known about the London bombings beforehand and to have helped the 9/11 pilots. The Turkish interrogators in Istanbul's high-security prison wanted to be polite; they wanted to show respect for Islam. They offered their prisoner, an Islamist named Luai Sakra, 31, a chance to pray during a pause in questioning. They'd done the same thing with earlier suspects. The move was supposed to establish trust. But this prisoner reacted a...

AS THE WAR with Saddam's Iraq approached, a small group of terrorists in Kurdish-controlled Iraq garnered a significant amount of news coverage. Senior-level Bush administration officials had claimed that this group, Ansar al Islam, represented a key link between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda. There was evidence, after all, that Saddam's intelligence operatives funded and supplied the al Qaeda terrorists who joined this group's ranks in the wake of the invasion of Afghanistan. That evidence was hotly contested for months until the story of Ansar al Islam gradually receded from the headlines. Today, the group is hardly even mentioned--if at...

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraqi Kurdistan - "A series of suicide bombings in previously peaceful South Kurdistan (Iraqi Kurdistan) has aroused suspicions that elements of the Iranian regime are backing efforts to destabilize the region." writes The Washington Times. "Before then, Tehran was keen to see the Kurds cooperate with the [Iraqi] Shi’ite parties," he said. "Now that the Shi’ites are on top, Iran is doing its best to weaken the Kurdish wing in parliament. Bomb attacks up here are an ideal distraction." said a Kurdish official. At least 85 persons have died and hundreds have been injured in three attacks over the...